10 Most Memorable Hammer-Wielding Movie Characters

Lynne Ramsay's fourth feature is a stripped-down thriller, in which Joaquin Phoenix stars as a hired gun, blandly known as Joe, tasked with retrieving the daughter of a senator from the clutches of a child abuse ring. Despite his outwardly calm demeanour, Joe frequently explodes with violent rage on his assignments – and it's a hammer he uses to dole out rough justice.

There's a patient, measured feel to You Were Never Really Here, which serves as a character study for the fractured mind of Phoenix's character, who has seen real suffering both as a child in an abusive family and as a war veteran witnessing shocking human atrocities. It's as if the chance to unleash violence with a hammer allows some cathartic release for the tortured soul within him.

Whether it's Phoenix's hitman in this film or Ezra Miller as an unrepentant school shooter in Ramsay's last film, We Need to Talk About Kevin, she deals in complicated protagonists with violent tendencies. In the case of Joe, he's a character who uses his hammer to exorcise the demons of his past.